K-NFB Reading Technology, a joint venture of the National Federation of the Blind and Kurzweil Technologies, this week introduced the knfbREADER Mobile, a solution to give blind users access to SMS text messaging - as well as everything from GPS to mobile e-mail.

Designed for the Nokia N82, the solution is, according to the company, “the smallest text-to-speech reading device in history.”

And it's not just for SMS. “The software turns the phone into a pocket-sized reader, enabling users to take a picture of most printed material and have it read back to them,” writes VNUnet's Ian Williams.

If you are too lazy to unlock your keypad and read your text messages, you will surely love ShakeSMS - a new mobile application enabling Nokia Nseries users to read SMS just by shaking their mobile phones.

The video shows how it works. Just shake your phone to read the message even if the keypad is locked, read the message, shake it again to return to the main menu and lock the keypad.

Though many users may find this cool, it is virtually useless. The idea behind ShakeSMS is to reduce the number of steps to read text messages. Then again, how hard is it to read a text message?

Just by looking at the video you will see how sensitive it is to slight movements. Even if you're walking this might open your inbox by mistake. Not a good companion if you are always on the go or have an active lifestyle.

Now RFID tags will come under the green blanket as they will be in the company of environment friendly green performance batteries. Here are the EnerChip family of thin-film battery devices which not only end the need of battery replacement but also offer superb performance which does not even harm the environment around you.

Designed for RFID and other technologies these are small and highly rechargeable batteries which distribute energy. It eliminates the requirement for battery replacement and since they have been created from materials which are not hazardous and are lead free therefore it does not cause any harm to the health of the environment. The RFID technology would definitely be gaining from EnerChips in the coming future and respect in the eyes of environmentalists too!!

Although the idea behind Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech is to develop cross-platform applications and complement Symbian OS, this could be damaging to Symbian over the long haul. According to an analyst at ABI Research:

Currently, Nokia only offers Linux based MIDs (mobile internet devices) and even though it has not expressed any specific intentions so far, this acquisition is likely to lead to Nokia introducing smartphones and other handsets based on Linux in the coming years. For Symbian, it will be a big setback and their market-share of the OS market will rapidly decline if Nokia starts offering Linux devices.

Even though it is very unlikely for Trolltech to replace Symbian, it can still weaken the bottom line of Nokia's longtime OS in terms of royalty revenues. With the entry of Google's Android, the role of Linux-based mobile devices might become more relevant in the future.

At the DEMO 08 conference in Palm Desert this week, Skyfire unveiled its new mobile browser which supports all Web technologies, including Flash, Ajax, Java, etc. — and thereby offering a much more user-friendly Web experience than any other mobile browser currently available.

InformationWeek's Eric Zeman was blown away by a demo of the software he saw last week. “The speed was incredible,” he writes. “The demonstrators took it through its paces, showing me Web sites that are full of Flash animation. It displayed all of the sites quickly and without stuttering or delays.”

Brighthand's Ed Hardy notes that the browser's speed is the result of caching on Skyfire's part. “One of the reasons this browser is so fast and full-featured is it's server-based,” he writes. “When you're opening a Web page with your smartphone, it's actually being opened on a Skyfire server, which then sends an image of the page to your device.”

Maybe it's time for Apple's brilliant CEO Steve Jobs to get rid of its exclusive partnerships and go mass market for its revolutionary mobile handset, iPhone. According to Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, about 1 million or 27% of total iPhones sold in the U.S. are “unlocked” so consumers can use it on other mobile operators.

Translated in dollars this means a revenue loss of $500 million for 2008, assuming iPhone reaches its sales target of 10 million units in the US. While AT&T and Apple acknowledge this problem, both parties declined to comment on this guesswork. Though I'm sure we can assume silence means yes.

Expect this rate to increase for there are still many mobile consumers who remain madly in love with this device.

Image analytics and pattern recognition software firm Mitek Systems is all geared up to take mobile banking to the next level with its ImageNet Mobile Deposit - the first mobile banking software that extends mobile payments and paper check deposit capabilities to millions of customers who use camera phones.

These new financial services complement the existing mobile banking features such as balance inquiry, fund transfers and electronic bills payments. More importantly, it adds value for many banking customers who lack the time to pay their bills and deposit money.

Compatible with any mobile devices equipped with 2 megapixel camera or higher and Windows Mobile or Symbian OS, this application is very easy to use. Here's the basic guide:

To make a deposit, the user initiates a mobile banking session, keys in the deposit amount, and snaps a photo of the front and back of the check. The software captures the images and recognizes and extracts the check's Courtesy Amount and Legal Amount (CAR/LAR). Before transmitting data to the bank, ImageNet Mobile Deposit confirms the check images meet Check 21 accepted image quality standards. Once the bank's system receives the deposit, it sends the customer a confirmation text message.

The same process works with payment of paper bills. While the idea is brilliant, will the general public embrace this technology? I'm sure security issues will also be the utmost concern.

As I was browsing my feeds, I chanced upon a press release from survey and professional services company Vocal Laboratories and its study of customer service quality among major wireless phone companies.

It turned out that Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile both received the highest grades possible in its latest quarterly survey. Moreover, VocaLabs CEO Peter Leppik commented:

We've been following customer service quality in the mobile phone industry for over four years, and during that time the industry as a whole has posted a significant, sustained, and meaningful improvement in customer service quality. This trend continued in the December 2007 quarter, with industry averages on all our major benchmarks showing improvement.

Then it got me wondering. Are these improvements enough to elevate the poor image of the wireless industry in comparison with other sectors? To refresh your memory, this industry performed poorly in the latest Forrester Customer Experience Index. Unfortunately, SectorPulse limits its study for different companies in the same industry.

How about you? Do you think there is an improvement in the customer service industry, at all?

Nokia bought Trolltech for about $150 million, and there’s all sorts of speculation online about what it means. Before I get to that, let me quickly summarize what Trolltech does:Trolltech is a Norwegian company that makes development tools and Linux …

FreeFi Networks today announced a partnership with Disney-ABC Domestic Television to provide video-on-demand (VOD) rentals to users of FreeFi's free Wi-Fi network at Denver International Airport (DIA).

The rentals are cached locally, making it possible for users to download them quickly to their laptops, iPhones, etc. before boarding a flight.

Wi-Fi Net News' Glenn Fleishman is enthusiastic. “I have been writing for years about the power of the edge network, where instead of providing an Internet feed, media resides locally and can be moved at many times the potential Internet rate,” he writes. “This is the first substantial deployment in any form that I'm aware of.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the future of mobile advertising is a “huge revolution”, contrary to the conservative projection of Forrester Research. The mobile advertising market is projected to generate a meager $1 billion in 2012.

“It's the recreation of the Internet, it's the recreation of the PC (personal computer) story and it is before us — and it is very likely it will happen in the next year,” said Schmidt, in a news article.

While Schmidt's words in the Internet world are immensely influential, analysts in the mobile industry are not convinced of this fearless and self-serving prediction. Moreover, the powerful Google CEO has criticized Forrester for failing to account the tipping point of mobile Web.

Who do you think will win in this prediction battle? An established research firm or a company known for its visionary insights?

How about an active and passive RFID combo? Very soon Seiko Precision will be coming up with hybrid RFID tags where you will get active and passive RFID tags on a single package. Dubbed as SecureTag WT-300 it would be offering dual communication ranges.

With active tag you will be getting a range of 50cm whereas the passive tag offers a shorter communication range. The former could be used for tracking whereabouts of people whereas the latter can be put to use for authentication purposes. Have a look at their press release.

On Friday, I got to watch a demo of Skyfire over Skype Video given by Skyfire CEO Nitin Bhandari. Skyfire aims to bring the full PC browsing experience to your mobile handset rendering a web page complete with Flash with no compromises. Based on the demo I saw on a live handset, it truly delivers!

The browser will be offered in a private beta in the U.S. for Windows Mobile devices. You can sign up for the beta at Skyfire's web site. Symbian (e.g. Nokia S60 devices) is planned to be available in the first quarter of 2008. Other locations will be supported in the near future as well.

Nokia issued a press release today stating their intent to purchase Trolltech ASA. Trolltech makes a cross-platform graphical toolkit called Qt, which first got notoriety when it was chosen for the KDE Desktop Environment on Linux. Originally not open source, Qt is now licensed under both a commercial license and the GPL.

Qt will give Nokia a cross-platform layer that can be used to develop applications for both PCs and mobile devices. Qt is expected to be integrated into the Series 40 and S60 platforms, making this dream possible. Furthermore, Nokia plans to continue to offer Qt and other Trolltech technologies with commercial licensing or the GPL.

Do you think this purchase by Nokia will usher in a new era of applications that can run both on your phone and your PC, yet have a similar user experience? What do you think about this?

Rom Feria over at Tech Without Wires points to a UK study that suggests smartphones, such as the Nokia N95 pictured here, aren't necessary. The study suggests brits use voice calling and SMS more than they use the advanced features.

I myself make heavy use of the secondary features of my Nokia N95, however I realize that I am not in the majority. Most everyone I know outside of people I work with are voice only users with some SMS. However, Smartphones are clearly not for people that just want voice and SMS. However, I can't imagine my life without a Smartphone. What's your take?